Hagrid had taken Charlie Brown and Sally to get their Wizarding money and on the way they'd stopped off at Vault 713. There, Hagrid had picked up a small parcel and told the kids that they were better off not knowing what it was.
Back outside, Charlie Brown looked for Snoopy only to find that he wasn't where he was left.
"Snoopy!" Charlie Brown called out. "Snoopy!"
"Only your stupid beagle could get lost like this after you tied him to a bollard." Sally huffed, folding her arms.
"Oh Charlie, I'm sure Snoopy can't have gone far." Hagrid said. "We jus'..."
Almost as soon as he began, Hagrid was cut off by the manager of Eeylops Owl Emporium chasing Snoopy from his store.
"Big Brother, your beagle's in trouble." Sally said smugly.
"Aaugh! Snoopy!" Charlie Brown pursued Snoopy down Diagon Alley and to the Magical Menagerie. Snoopy ran inside and Charlie Brown rushed in after him.
Inside the pet shop, Charlie Brown looked around in awe. There were animals he'd never seen before as well as those he had such as cats and rats and toads. He stood there looking around before remembering about Snoopy, his dog.
"Snoopy!" Charlie Brown called out.
Snoopy had stopped in front of a cage with a small yellow bird inside and they almost seemed to be... Talking to one another.
"Snoopy?" Charlie Brown walked over to his dog.
"III IIIII III IIIII II I II" The bird chattered.
Snoopy chattered back to the bird before turning to Charlie Brown and pointing at it.
"No, Snoopy, I'm not getting you a bird. You'd just eat it or something."
Snoopy looked pleadingly at Charlie Brown.
"I said no, Snoopy!"
Snoopy got down on his knees and begged at Charlie Brown's feet. He put his hand (paw?) in front of his eyes and made sobbing noises.
Charlie Brown let out a low growl, looking at his dog and then at the little yellow bird. He sighed and approached the manager.
"Excuse me, how much for the little yellow bird?"
Minutes later, Charlie Brown emerged from the pet shop carrying a cage with the little yellow bird in it and Snoopy walking beside him.
Sally and Hagrid looked surprised.
"Big Brother, you bought a bird?" Sally asked incredulously.
"Snoopy made me!" Charlie Brown replied defensively. Snoopy smirked and nodded.
"Alrigh', well, how about we go an' get yer uniform?" Hagrid asked as he began to walk towards Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.
"What about me?!" Sally asked.
"You can look after Snoopy's pet bird." Charlie Brown offered Sally the birdcage and she took it, albeit reluctantly.
"Snoopy's pet bird." Sally sneered. "You have Snoopy and Snoopy has this bird, why don't I get a pet?!" She whined.
"We can go an' get yeh a pet if yeh want, Sally." Hagrid offered. "Charlie, mind goin' in yerself?"
"No, I-I can go and get my own robes."
"Alrigh', we'll take Snoopy an' yer bird with us." Hagrid said, taking Sally back down to the Magical Menagerie.
Charlie Brown entered Madam Malkin's shop alone and feeling nervous.
Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.
"Hogwarts, dear?" She asked.
Charlie Brown nodded.
"Got the lot here-a young woman being fitted up just now, in fact."
In the back of the shop, a girl with a rounded face, black hair and lines by her eyes was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up her long black robes.
Charlie Brown stood on the stool next to her as Madam Malkin slipped a long robe over his head and pinned it the right length.
Charlie Brown looked over at the girl again.
"Hello." The girl said. "Are you going to Hogwarts too?"
"Yes." Charlie Brown replied.
"My father's next door buying my books." She said. "Have you got your books?"
"Uh-no." Charlie Brown said.
"You don't sound very confident." The girl raised an eyebrow. "I bet you'll be in Hufflepuff. Not that there's anything wrong with Hufflepuff, it's just the people there seem to be bland. I think I'll be in Ravenclaw. Either Ravenclaw or Slytherin."
"Mmn." Charlie Brown grunted.
"Do you not like talking or something?" The girl asked. "I can help with that. My diagnosis is that you have glossophobia. The fear of speaking in public. To overcome this fear, I recommend you imagine everyone you speak to in their underwear." She smiled, looking pleased with herself. "That'll be five Knuts, please."
"Five Knuts?" Charlie Brown frowned.
"Yes, five Knuts. Knuts are the little bronze coins." The girl replied, getting slightly irritated. "Are you Muggleborn or something?"
"No." Charlie Brown answered. Though he had been brought up by muggles, his actual biological parents were a witch and a wizard.
"I get it. You're just a blockhead failure face in general." The girl smirked. "You'd better watch out that they don't throw you out of Hogwarts. I hear that everyone who gets expelled from Hogwarts gets an automatic ticket to Azkaban."
Charlie Brown wasn't sure what Azkaban was, but judging by the way the girl said it, it wasn't good.
"Okay."
"So what's your name, or do I have to keep calling you Blockhead?"
"Okay, that's you done, dear." Madam Malkin said before Charlie Brown could reply.
Charlie Brown nodded and stepped down from the footstool.
"I'll see you at Hogwarts then, shall I?" The girl asked.
"Yeah, I suppose." Charlie Brown replied before going to pay for his robes.
Charlie Brown was quiet as he ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought him. Sally, on the other hand, talked non stop.
"And it was so cool, Big Brother! They had colour changing ink!" She said excitedly.
Charlie Brown gave a monosyllabic grunt and a noncommittal shrug.
"Blimey, Charlie, yeh been quiet since yeh came from Madam Malkin's. Y'alright, aren't yeh?" Hagrid asked.
"What's Hufflepuff? And Ravenclaw? And Slytherin?" Charlie Brown asked.
"School houses. There's four. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin."
"Was Vol-uh... You-Know-Who in Slytherin?" Sally asked.
"Yup. Years an' years ago." Hagrid nodded.
"And he turned bad." Charlie Brown said.
"Yes he did." Hagrid checked Charlie's list. "Come on. We better get yeh books."
Hagrid led the children and Snoopy to Flourish and Blotts.
"Wait here with the bird, Snoopy. Don't eat him." Charlie Brown handed the birdcage to Snoopy before walking in.
Snoopy put the birdcage on the floor and looked at the bird.
"III II IIIII III II I II IIII" The bird chattered.
You're a magic bird. What kind of magic can you do then? Snoopy wondered to himself.
"IIIII II II II I III I"
Oh, you don't do magic yourself, you're just a familiar. Snoopy nodded and sat down, looking at the little yellow bird.
"IIIII II III I II"
So what type of bird are you?
The bird shrugged.
Do you have a name?
The bird nodded. "II IIII II II"
Okay, nice to meet you too. I'm Snoopy.
"III I II"
Inside the shop, Charlie Brown couldn't tear himself away from the books. Shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones, books bound with leather and books so heavy that Charlie Brown couldn't lift them. There were books the size of postage stamps and books the likes of which he'd never seen before with strange symbols and of course, books with nothing in them-Charlie Brown figured they were journals.
Hagrid helped the amazed and speechless Charlie Brown buy all the books on his list and even Sally got to buy herself a wizard novel. After that, they went to Potage's Cauldron shop to buy a cauldron, Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment for scales and a telescope and finally to the apothecary for basic potion ingredients. Charlie Brown and Hagrid went through the list of potions ingredients that Charlie Brown needed, while Sally looked around. She noticed miniscule glittery black beetle eyes were five knuts a scoop and that unicorn horns were twenty one galleons each. Wait-unicorn horns?
"Unicorns are real?" Sally asked loudly. "Really real?"
"Of course they are, Sally Brown!" The man behind the counter said.
"That's so cool!" Sally squealed.
Outside the apothecary, Hagrid checked Charlie Brown's list once again.
"Just yer wand left."
"You get a wand, Big Brother?" Sally asked.
"Yeh'll be gettin' a want next year, Sally." Hagrid said. "But fer now, we're goin' to Ollivanders for a wand for Charlie."